Eartendel, the most distant and oldest star ever seen, may not be what seems

A quirk of nature that helps enlarge the extremely distant cosmic objects allowed a space Telescope to see a star that existed when the universe was only 900 million years old.

The NASA Hubble Observatory discovered in 2022, which makes it the most distant and oldest star ever seen. Astronomers have named it Eartendelmeaning “Morning Star” in old English.

A year later, scientists followed the James Webb space telescope Because it has a larger mirror and collects light at longer infrared wavelengths. At this stage, scientists thought they had spotted a companion star, what they were surprised was technically possible, even with the unprecedented power of webb.

NOW, A new study suggests that the surprisingly distant star light from Eartendel comes more than just a star or a pair of relatives. Le Journal, published In Astrophysical newspaper lettersAnalysis of the data from the previous webb telescope with IT models and finds a convincing case that Eartendel can, in fact, be a star cluster, composed of a collection of stars.

“My secret hope is that it is an individual star,” said Massimo Pasmale, who led research to UC Berkeley, Mashable.

Scientists are impatient to find and seek stars as old as Eartendel because such relics can solve the mysteries of the ancient universe, considered 13.8 billion years.

Hubble ofEartendel Through a phenomenon known as the gravitational lens – when a group of galaxy in the foreground of the view of a telescope magnifies and folds the light beyond. NASA often uses the analogy of a bowling ball placed on a trampoline to illustrate this point, the ball representing a massive celestial object and the trampoline being the fabric of space-time. The light that spoke otherwise the straight curves deform when it goes through this distorted space-time. It is like adding a more powerful lens to a telescope.

But gravitational lens Also has the potential to reproduce or stretch objects, how a funhouse mirror can create several irregular copies of images.

Because Galaxy CLUSTER WHL0137-08 serves as a colossal magnifying glass in the sky, the light of the incredibly distant galaxy of Eartendel, the sunrise arc, appeared in the view of Hubble. Scientists could see him as he was 12.9 billion years ago. But today, because the universe has also extended through cosmic extensionThe sunrise arc is estimated at 28 billion light years from the earth.

Astronomers have a lot of experience in identifying the effects of gravitational lens, but this has not always been the case. In 1987, a huge blue arch considered hundreds of billions of kilometers long was first considered one of the greatest things ever detected in the cosmos. Later that year, scientists understood that they were looking at an optical illusion, a distortion caused by a group of galaxies. The New York Times published a story on The “bizarre” involvement of the general theory of relativity of Einstein, entitled “Vast Cosmic Object Downradgrad to a Mirage”.

For Eartendel, some astronomers have continued to wonder if it is a star. Pascale, now Einstein scholarship holder at the UCLA, and the employees have decided to reassess his size, which may have been low because the estimates did not take into account the mini halos of dark matterA mysterious but abundant substance that does not shine or interact with light. Such tufts of dark matter could influence magnification. With these effects considered, the size of Eartendel could be consistent with a star cluster.

The researchers compared Eartendel to a large Star cluster In the same galaxy, known as 1b. What they have noted is that Eartendel and the 1B cluster have similar characteristics: they are already between 30 and 150 million years in the snapshot of webb, they lack heavy elements made by “more recent” stars, and they look like clusters of old stars nearby.

While 1B adapts extremely well in star cluster models, Eartendel did it, according to the study.

“So that Eartendel is an individual star, or perhaps a binary of two stars very close to each other, the fortuitous alignment of Eartendel with the group of leading galaxies which causes the effect of gravitational lensage should be an incredible stroke of luck,” Pascale in Mashable told Mashable. “If it is a cluster of stars, this alignment of luck – it does not need to be so perfect.”

Although the new article does not speculate on the number of stars that could be among such a cluster, Pascale says that her mass could be equal to that of hundreds of thousands of suns – or more.

A possible way to answer the question of whether Eartendel is a lonely star is to monitor the sparkle. Thanks to several observations, scientists could be able to catch the light source suddenly and briefly more brilliant. A cluster of stars would not show such fluctuations because all the light of other stars would wash it.

Although securing the telescope to conduct research is expensive, Pascale said it could be a company valid for the scientific community to explore.

Until now, colleagues have seemed open to considering a cluster of stars as an explanation for Eartendel, but Pascale stresses that the document does not definitively prove that it is: the previous teams which made the discovery also made a convincing case. He hopes that the new study will simply add to the speech.

“Maybe everyone keeps their secret thoughts about this a little more private subject,” he said, “but most people are quite happy to say:” Yes, a star cluster seems to be an option. “”